provoking instability in the established social system. In this sense, the
creation of alternative realities is questioned in a series of dystopian films
like The Matrix, Dark City and Total Recall that make patent our intention to
avoid a future in which we are unable to distinguish if our life is real and we
are being dominated. These dystopian SF films demonstrate that the ‘bright,
clears prospects of science and technology have turned into a grim
nightmare. Dystopias are, after all, failed utopias, a demonstration of the
dangers of attempting to engineer any kind of perfect world’ (King, 2000:
15).
Cinema seems, therefore, a perfect medium to represent ideology,
collective imaginations and utopias/dystopias; the existence of all these
elements is not exclusive as they can coexist and converge in the same film
without necessarily being in contradiction with one another. In this sense,
The Matrix and eXistenZ are pertinent examples of films in which the
ideology, collective imagination and the dystopia narrated relate to various
aspects of the understanding of (un)reality but the different perspectives
cohabit harmoniously. Films are responsible for the representation of real
spaces, where we could have physically been, and simultaneously cinema
expresses credible fictions which nobody can ever inhabit. Therefore it fulfils
the ritual function of enunciation in images, the knowledge of our time, the
ideas, fears and hopes that refer to the large collective myths or the small
mythologies of everyday life. Cinema is achieving this in the most spectacular
way: giving the maximum (in)visibility to the ideology, utopias and collective
unconsciousness of our society.
3.2. Semiology and Knowledge of (un)reality
As the real world becomes more fantastic, so the fantastic
world becomes more real (King, L: 2002: 137).
The unreal may arise spontaneously in dreams and seems to
fool us while we are dreaming. The unreal may also result
from sensory or cognitive error, again spontaneously, and
such as to lead to deception. In either case, the world co-
exists with something else thanks to the powers and frailties
of the mind. There is another way in which the real world
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